ATLANTA (HIMSS Conference), March 1, 2010 – AeroScout, the leading provider of Unified Asset Visibility for the healthcare industry, today announced that Adventist Health System (AHS) has selected AeroScout’s Temperature Monitoring solution. The 37-hospital healthcare organization will use the AeroScout solution to wirelessly monitor and manage the temperature of refrigerators. Adventist Health System made the selection building on the success that its flagship, Florida Hospital, has experienced since deploying AeroScout’s Wi-Fi RFID solution. Florida Hospital uses the solution to ensure regulatory compliance and reduce costs, while relieving nursing staff of the worry and inefficiencies involved with manual temperature monitoring.
“After observing the value Florida Hospital has achieved with AeroScout, we wanted to make those same benefits available to all of our hospitals,” said Mike Emmons, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at AHS Information Services. “AeroScout has the most robust set of healthcare RTLS offerings, and its solutions leverage standard Wi-Fi networks – both of which were key factors in our selection.”
Florida Hospital is one of the nation’s premier healthcare providers and has eight hospitals and nearly 2,200 beds. It is the flagship hospital of Adventist Health System, a not-for-profit healthcare organization based in Winter Park, Florida, which consists of 37 hospitals and 50,000 staff members, providing care for four million patients each year.
In September 2009, Florida Hospital implemented AeroScout’s Temperature Monitoring solution to automate the tracking of temperatures within refrigerators and freezers containing pharmaceuticals and tissue samples, and to facilitate regulatory compliance. The solution consists of AeroScout’s MobileView software and AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags, and leverages Florida Hospital’s existing Cisco Unified Wireless Network.
If the temperature within a monitored refrigerator or freezer goes outside of its specified range, MobileView sends an alert to the IT team, which is available 24 hours per day. Depending on the temperature trend, the team can determine if the refrigerator needs inspection or repairs, or if the door was simply left open. In addition, the staff can tell when the temperature change occurred and thus knows if the contents are still safe for use or must be discarded. With an AeroScout Temperature Monitoring deployment, hospitals are also able to proactively identify refrigerators and freezers that have consistent problems and then take corrective actions.
“Since starting to use AeroScout’s Temperature Monitoring solution, we have already had several instances where we were able to save time and money by identifying out-of-range temperatures quickly,” said Todd Frantz, Associate Chief Technology Officer at Florida Hospital. “For instance, if a refrigerator door is left ajar, we’ll be alerted and the contents can be saved. Replacing medications and other refrigerated items can be very costly, especially when you factor in the administrative costs.”
In one instance where a refrigerator was moved and then not working properly, the AeroScout solution detected a problem and alerted staff in time to save nearly $40,000 worth of refrigerated items. In addition to the cost of the materials, this prevented significant time and administrative costs that would have been associated with replacing the items. Most importantly, Florida Hospital was able to prevent any potential impact on patient care.
Another important benefit of the AeroScout Temperature Monitoring solution is that it relieves the nursing staff from keeping manual temperature logs, saving time and effort that can be spent on other responsibilities. “The AeroScout solution enables nurses to remain focused on patient care, and not waste time on manual procedures that could and should be automated,” said Frantz.
Based on the success of Florida Hospital’s implementation and working with Insight Technology Solutions, a solutions provider with deep expertise in networking, Adventist Health System has now selected AeroScout’s Temperature Monitoring solution for its hospitals.
An important aspect of the AHS Information Services implementation is that Temperature Monitoring for its geographically dispersed hospitals will be centrally deployed in one location. MobileView and Cisco’s Mobility Services Engine (MSE) will be hosted at the main data center for AHS Information Services in Lake Mary, Florida. This centralized approach significantly reduces implementation time and costs, as well as operations costs.
